The post 60 grind is worse, but the grind to 60 is very poorly designed, especially with all the post DR content locked to level 60 for no good reason. I can't fault anyone for hating it, after coming from 1-55 or so and being able to level purely doing missions, to then come to a sudden halt as they try to finish the path to 60.
There are lots of other ways to get to 60, I mean most of my characters have not done the DR storyline at all except for a few select missions for ground kit rewards, but if you just want to go through the story and rightly expect to progress that way, it is a big wall to get over and forces you out into other mindless content that you may not want to do.
the thing is once you have completed the story missions there is nothing left but "mindless content" as you call it so whats the difference gradually do the story missions as you unlock them with some "mindless content" in between or tear through the story missions and have nothing left to do but "mindless content", I really cant see what the difference is, but at least with the system as it is there is some story missions to look forward to as you play the "mindless content" to unlock them as opposed to finishing all of the story missions and then have nothing to look forward to but "mindless content".
in fact if the only part of the game I enjoyed was the story missions then I don't think I would bother playing sto at all as 90% of the time all you have is what you refer to as "mindless content".
This is pretty wrong in my view. First, for me there is no mindless content. Sometimes, I just want to log in and kill some stuff and sometimes I want to enjoy a story, not a part of it, but the whole thing. I may have a whole afternoon for it, The system does not allow it. I can play a mission, and then I have to leave that story and do other things, because it is designed that way. To put it simply, I want to decide, what I play and when and I want to have as much freedom as is possible. However what we have is more a dictate, we know what is best how to level and at what pace.
Yeah, and then some people leave and are lured back with free levels, great.
I think they should restructure missions so there isn't a level gap. there's plenty of them now...
Yes. I have been proposing moving all Delta Rising missions down to Level 55. Once the Iconian War arc is complete, MAYBE you hit 60 on the last mission and thus begin New Dawn having earned fleet admiralcy after having shown how much better you were than any of the official leadership (Kagran).
Christian Gaming Community Fleets--Faith, Fun, and Fellowship! See the website and PM for more. :-) Proudly F2P.Signature image by gulberat. Avatar image by balsavor.deviantart.com.
The post 60 grind is worse, but the grind to 60 is very poorly designed, especially with all the post DR content locked to level 60 for no good reason. I can't fault anyone for hating it, after coming from 1-55 or so and being able to level purely doing missions, to then come to a sudden halt as they try to finish the path to 60.
There are lots of other ways to get to 60, I mean most of my characters have not done the DR storyline at all except for a few select missions for ground kit rewards, but if you just want to go through the story and rightly expect to progress that way, it is a big wall to get over and forces you out into other mindless content that you may not want to do.
the thing is once you have completed the story missions there is nothing left but "mindless content" as you call it so whats the difference gradually do the story missions as you unlock them with some "mindless content" in between or tear through the story missions and have nothing left to do but "mindless content", I really cant see what the difference is, but at least with the system as it is there is some story missions to look forward to as you play the "mindless content" to unlock them as opposed to finishing all of the story missions and then have nothing to look forward to but "mindless content".
in fact if the only part of the game I enjoyed was the story missions then I don't think I would bother playing sto at all as 90% of the time all you have is what you refer to as "mindless content".
This is pretty wrong in my view. First, for me there is no mindless content. Sometimes, I just want to log in and kill some stuff and sometimes I want to enjoy a story, not a part of it, but the whole thing. I may have a whole afternoon for it, The system does not allow it. I can play a mission, and then I have to leave that story and do other things, because it is designed that way. To put it simply, I want to decide, what I play and when and I want to have as much freedom as is possible. However what we have is more a dictate, we know what is best how to level and at what pace.
Yeah, and then some people leave and are lured back with free levels, great.
first off it wasn't me that said there was mindless content, that was just me quoting spyralpegacyon.
now onto your point the episodes being locked behind certain levels is a whole other subject, this thread is supposed to be about the climb from lv50 to lv60, now if you want to play the story content one after the other you can quite easily do so if you wish, you just need to get your character to lv60 before you start the story missions.
it only took me two weeks to level one character up from lv50 to lv60 maybe I had an advantage as a long time player but I just kept doing the same stuff I had been doing before until I reached lv60 then I started playing the delta stories.
but going back to what this thread is supposed to be about the climb from lv50 to lv60 everyone who complains seems to be under the impression that it takes forever and as I said I don't consider two weeks to be that bad, yes its a little longer in comparison to levelling up to 50 but it not that bad really.
in my opinion the best thing you can do as a new player or as an old player rolling a new toon is to forget there are any story missions past the dyson sphere and just concentrate on playing the content for completing all the reputations up to and including that of dyson reputation and just omit delta and iconian reputation, by the time you have reached that point the content you have played to fill these reputations should give you enough of a head start to enable you to go through most if not all of the delta content without any holdups.
having said that has it not perhaps occurred to anyone that this content is not meant to be played all in the same day or two, its perhaps supposed to play out over the course two or three weeks to perhaps give the impression to the player that these missions did not happen to your captain all within a short time but over a longer period, perhaps thats why the devs chose to lock these missions behind certain levels, just so we would not blow through them all in a day or two.
When I think about everything we've been through together,
maybe it's not the destination that matters, maybe it's the journey,
and if that journey takes a little longer,
so we can do something we all believe in,
I can't think of any place I'd rather be or any people I'd rather be with.
If you're unable or unwilling to level an alt to 60, then that character probably isn't important anyway.If they're not interesting enough to play and level them, does it make sense to complain that they're not level 60 yet? No, it does not.
This is how I see it. I play 3 characters. Each one from the main factions. Fed, KDF, and Romulan. So I'm working on getting them leveled up and enjoying playing them. I have a few lower levels that isn't Lv50. Like my KDF Tac in a BoP, Fed Tac in a Defiant or Prometheus, Fed Sci, and Delta Recruit. My issue isn't they are not interesting or good enough to enjoy. My issue is lack of time to really play them all. Which is why I focus on the main 3. Once in a while I will get on one of the others and play those to give one of my mains a rest. Or to break up the monotony. Since the main 3 is about the same level or area of play on the game.
One day they all will be leveled up. I'm just slow about it. If a person really wants them leveled and have certain gear. They will make it happen. Just like my main 3. Each one did the Reps I wanted and missions. So they all are about equal to a degree.
USS Casinghead NCC 92047 launched 2350
Fleet Admiral Stowe - Dominion War Vet.
It's easy to get to 50 in the game because the story content gives tons of experience and there is no level gap. Once you reach 50 and above, it's a disaster. You get maybe one tenth of the experience necessary to level to the next level. Then you are stuck doing the "mindless content" which means grinding patrols or doing DOFF missions. Yes, DOFF missions are mindless. I didn't pay to play some idiotic side game that some dev decided to put in to keep people distracted from the main game by queueing up missions and letting them run over time. It's a stupid system that isn't playing the game, it's just a waiting game.
It's easy to get to 50 in the game because the story content gives tons of experience and there is no level gap. Once you reach 50 and above, it's a disaster. You get maybe one tenth of the experience necessary to level to the next level. Then you are stuck doing the "mindless content" which means grinding patrols or doing DOFF missions. Yes, DOFF missions are mindless. I didn't pay to play some idiotic side game that some dev decided to put in to keep people distracted from the main game by queueing up missions and letting them run over time. It's a stupid system that isn't playing the game, it's just a waiting game.
I agree on the Doff. I was getting good exp to help level. Until they did the "Great Doff Nerf", now I don't even bother with it. What is helping me some, is I'm done the Kobali ground missions. So I'm getting some Exp as I work the Iconian Rep. Since that is the only place for solo marks. This kinda helps some, and break up the patrol route.
I agree, they should done more stories to help you level better.
USS Casinghead NCC 92047 launched 2350
Fleet Admiral Stowe - Dominion War Vet.
The whole 50-60 range changes the leveling gameplay experience from "fun and relaxing" to "hair-ripping and frustrating." There's a reason why I only level my for-fun alts to 50.
For you perhaps, not for me, for me the game only really becomes fun at level 50, and that was how I felt about it long before the Delta Rising level cap increase.
Oh don't misunderstand, I totally get that the game "becomes fun" in the upper levels for many reasons: Queues open up, ships get more than 3 weapon slots and buttons to press, most parts of the game are accessible overall, etc. The main issue at hand is that before, the gates to "all the content" were a lot easier to access than they are now that 50-60 is such a large grind. At 60, the game is great.
Oh don't misunderstand, I totally get that the game "becomes fun" in the upper levels for many reasons: Queues open up, ships get more than 3 weapon slots and buttons to press, most parts of the game are accessible overall, etc. The main issue at hand is that before, the gates to "all the content" were a lot easier to access than they are now that 50-60 is such a large grind.
Actually a lot of that opens at 50 (elite difficulty and a trait slot are what you get for 60) and the grind from 50 to 60 only WAS a grind for characters approaching DR from the old level cap. If you start a character up now you should be able to reach 60 without hitting many, if any, grind-walls.
All in all, character progression isn't in bad shape now. More should have been done to ease old characters into the cap-raised STO, but this long after DR we're well past that.
Bipedal mammal and senior Foundry author.
Notable missions: Apex [AEI], Gemini [SSF], Trident [AEI], Evolution's Smile [SSF], Transcendence
Looking for something new to play? I've started building Foundry missions again in visual novel form!
The whole 50-60 range changes the leveling gameplay experience from "fun and relaxing" to "hair-ripping and frustrating." There's a reason why I only level my for-fun alts to 50.
Truth is.... that's the way leveling in STO was before the game was F2P. It was at one time impossible, even FED side, to actually level a character from 0-50 doing just story missions. I know because I tried it once. You had to run the old non-repeatable patrols, and daily missions to fill in the xp gaps.... then F2P hit and leveling to 50 became a trivial task that can be easily done by doffing in sector space.... I leveled two of my Delta alts to 50 that way....
The whole 50-60 range changes the leveling gameplay experience from "fun and relaxing" to "hair-ripping and frustrating." There's a reason why I only level my for-fun alts to 50.
Truth is.... that's the way leveling in STO was before the game was F2P. It was at one time impossible, even FED side, to actually level a character from 0-50 doing just story missions. I know because I tried it once. You had to run the old non-repeatable patrols, and daily missions to fill in the xp gaps.... then F2P hit and leveling to 50 became a trivial task that can be easily done by doffing in sector space.... I leveled two of my Delta alts to 50 that way....
This is one reason why I kept going. Back when I did my KDF you had to be lv20 with a Fed to open that option. And you didn't have many missions to level you up. I did a ton of cluster missions to get into each level. Then hit a FE or 2, and back to the clusters. Also Doffing helped a good bit as well. Now they fixed the KDF, and its lot easier to level.
From that, I got used to that idea. And keep on chugging. Yeah its a little slow, but its not that bad. Specially since they opened up the Iconian Rep. Now I patrol and Kobali ground to build up that Rep. So that helps break up the monotony.
USS Casinghead NCC 92047 launched 2350
Fleet Admiral Stowe - Dominion War Vet.
I run some DOFF assignments in the morning, if I level up then I do a mission, otherwise logout until the next morning. That is how I dealt with it, I stopped caring.
Oh don't misunderstand, I totally get that the game "becomes fun" in the upper levels for many reasons: Queues open up, ships get more than 3 weapon slots and buttons to press, most parts of the game are accessible overall, etc. The main issue at hand is that before, the gates to "all the content" were a lot easier to access than they are now that 50-60 is such a large grind.
Actually a lot of that opens at 50 (elite difficulty and a trait slot are what you get for 60) and the grind from 50 to 60 only WAS a grind for characters approaching DR from the old level cap. If you start a character up now you should be able to reach 60 without hitting many, if any, grind-walls.
All in all, character progression isn't in bad shape now. More should have been done to ease old characters into the cap-raised STO, but this long after DR we're well past that.
Right this is the problem. I'm forced to abandon the character I worked on since launch and start another one so that I can level based on the mission content that doesn't have too many exp walls. This is poor design. Something that STO has suffered with since beta.
The whole 50-60 range changes the leveling gameplay experience from "fun and relaxing" to "hair-ripping and frustrating." There's a reason why I only level my for-fun alts to 50.
Truth is.... that's the way leveling in STO was before the game was F2P. It was at one time impossible, even FED side, to actually level a character from 0-50 doing just story missions. I know because I tried it once. You had to run the old non-repeatable patrols, and daily missions to fill in the xp gaps.... then F2P hit and leveling to 50 became a trivial task that can be easily done by doffing in sector space.... I leveled two of my Delta alts to 50 that way....
I just don't understand how you can doff your way all the way to 50 with 50-400xp missions in doffing? Is there some secret missions you are getting to get 10000xp so that you can level up faster?
My Delta toon was lvl 60 before starting any Delta Rising content. Just run the episodes, get busy with DOffing, and run STF's from time to time, and it will all take care of itself. Events like this weekend's JOA add XP's for DOffing, and you can always get some XP boosts to speed things along.
My larger beef with Cryptic was the false hype about how we really did not need anything better than T5 or T5U ships to run the DR content. Technically, this was/is correct, but the missions & NPC's are ridiculously hard to complete with those ships. I recall beating the Vaudwaar Artillery ship in a Risan Corvette, but I had to get very creative with tactics, and it took something like 2 hours for that single episode.
If Cryptic's goal is to pump up their "login time" metrics, this is one way: just make the player kill 4 or more waves of hitpoint sponges on 4-5 patrols per episode. Even in a well-equipped T6 ship and the benefit of previous experience, it's still taking more than 1 hour to play each DR episode...
Expendables Fleet: Andrew - Bajoran Fed Engineer Ken'taura - Rom/Fed Scientist Gwyllim - Human Fed Delta Tac Savik - Vulcan Fed Temporal Sci Dahar Masters Fleet: Alphal'Fa - Alien KDF Engineer Qun'pau - Rom/KDF Engineer D'nesh - Orion KDF Scientist Ghen'khan - Liberated KDF Tac Welcome to StarBug Online - to boldly Bug where no bug has been before!
STO player since November 2013
The whole 50-60 range changes the leveling gameplay experience from "fun and relaxing" to "hair-ripping and frustrating." There's a reason why I only level my for-fun alts to 50.
Truth is.... that's the way leveling in STO was before the game was F2P. It was at one time impossible, even FED side, to actually level a character from 0-50 doing just story missions. I know because I tried it once. You had to run the old non-repeatable patrols, and daily missions to fill in the xp gaps.... then F2P hit and leveling to 50 became a trivial task that can be easily done by doffing in sector space.... I leveled two of my Delta alts to 50 that way....
I just don't understand how you can doff your way all the way to 50 with 50-400xp missions in doffing? Is there some secret missions you are getting to get 10000xp so that you can level up faster?
Hamlet (go inside your ship and talk to your ops department head NPC)
But really... crits are the key. An assignment that gives 250xp non-crit might give 500 or more on a crit. Of course the higher the base, the better, but also using purple doffs increases the xp gain you get from crits.
Comments
This is pretty wrong in my view. First, for me there is no mindless content. Sometimes, I just want to log in and kill some stuff and sometimes I want to enjoy a story, not a part of it, but the whole thing. I may have a whole afternoon for it, The system does not allow it. I can play a mission, and then I have to leave that story and do other things, because it is designed that way. To put it simply, I want to decide, what I play and when and I want to have as much freedom as is possible. However what we have is more a dictate, we know what is best how to level and at what pace.
Yeah, and then some people leave and are lured back with free levels, great.
Yes. I have been proposing moving all Delta Rising missions down to Level 55. Once the Iconian War arc is complete, MAYBE you hit 60 on the last mission and thus begin New Dawn having earned fleet admiralcy after having shown how much better you were than any of the official leadership (Kagran).
Christian Gaming Community Fleets--Faith, Fun, and Fellowship! See the website and PM for more. :-)
Proudly F2P. Signature image by gulberat. Avatar image by balsavor.deviantart.com.
first off it wasn't me that said there was mindless content, that was just me quoting spyralpegacyon.
now onto your point the episodes being locked behind certain levels is a whole other subject, this thread is supposed to be about the climb from lv50 to lv60, now if you want to play the story content one after the other you can quite easily do so if you wish, you just need to get your character to lv60 before you start the story missions.
it only took me two weeks to level one character up from lv50 to lv60 maybe I had an advantage as a long time player but I just kept doing the same stuff I had been doing before until I reached lv60 then I started playing the delta stories.
but going back to what this thread is supposed to be about the climb from lv50 to lv60 everyone who complains seems to be under the impression that it takes forever and as I said I don't consider two weeks to be that bad, yes its a little longer in comparison to levelling up to 50 but it not that bad really.
in my opinion the best thing you can do as a new player or as an old player rolling a new toon is to forget there are any story missions past the dyson sphere and just concentrate on playing the content for completing all the reputations up to and including that of dyson reputation and just omit delta and iconian reputation, by the time you have reached that point the content you have played to fill these reputations should give you enough of a head start to enable you to go through most if not all of the delta content without any holdups.
having said that has it not perhaps occurred to anyone that this content is not meant to be played all in the same day or two, its perhaps supposed to play out over the course two or three weeks to perhaps give the impression to the player that these missions did not happen to your captain all within a short time but over a longer period, perhaps thats why the devs chose to lock these missions behind certain levels, just so we would not blow through them all in a day or two.
When I think about everything we've been through together,
maybe it's not the destination that matters, maybe it's the journey,
and if that journey takes a little longer,
so we can do something we all believe in,
I can't think of any place I'd rather be or any people I'd rather be with.
This is how I see it. I play 3 characters. Each one from the main factions. Fed, KDF, and Romulan. So I'm working on getting them leveled up and enjoying playing them. I have a few lower levels that isn't Lv50. Like my KDF Tac in a BoP, Fed Tac in a Defiant or Prometheus, Fed Sci, and Delta Recruit. My issue isn't they are not interesting or good enough to enjoy. My issue is lack of time to really play them all. Which is why I focus on the main 3. Once in a while I will get on one of the others and play those to give one of my mains a rest. Or to break up the monotony. Since the main 3 is about the same level or area of play on the game.
One day they all will be leveled up. I'm just slow about it. If a person really wants them leveled and have certain gear. They will make it happen. Just like my main 3. Each one did the Reps I wanted and missions. So they all are about equal to a degree.
USS Casinghead NCC 92047 launched 2350
Fleet Admiral Stowe - Dominion War Vet.
I agree on the Doff. I was getting good exp to help level. Until they did the "Great Doff Nerf", now I don't even bother with it. What is helping me some, is I'm done the Kobali ground missions. So I'm getting some Exp as I work the Iconian Rep. Since that is the only place for solo marks. This kinda helps some, and break up the patrol route.
I agree, they should done more stories to help you level better.
USS Casinghead NCC 92047 launched 2350
Fleet Admiral Stowe - Dominion War Vet.
All in all, character progression isn't in bad shape now. More should have been done to ease old characters into the cap-raised STO, but this long after DR we're well past that.
Notable missions: Apex [AEI], Gemini [SSF], Trident [AEI], Evolution's Smile [SSF], Transcendence
Looking for something new to play? I've started building Foundry missions again in visual novel form!
My character Tsin'xing
This is one reason why I kept going. Back when I did my KDF you had to be lv20 with a Fed to open that option. And you didn't have many missions to level you up. I did a ton of cluster missions to get into each level. Then hit a FE or 2, and back to the clusters. Also Doffing helped a good bit as well. Now they fixed the KDF, and its lot easier to level.
From that, I got used to that idea. And keep on chugging. Yeah its a little slow, but its not that bad. Specially since they opened up the Iconian Rep. Now I patrol and Kobali ground to build up that Rep. So that helps break up the monotony.
USS Casinghead NCC 92047 launched 2350
Fleet Admiral Stowe - Dominion War Vet.
Right this is the problem. I'm forced to abandon the character I worked on since launch and start another one so that I can level based on the mission content that doesn't have too many exp walls. This is poor design. Something that STO has suffered with since beta.
I just don't understand how you can doff your way all the way to 50 with 50-400xp missions in doffing? Is there some secret missions you are getting to get 10000xp so that you can level up faster?
My larger beef with Cryptic was the false hype about how we really did not need anything better than T5 or T5U ships to run the DR content. Technically, this was/is correct, but the missions & NPC's are ridiculously hard to complete with those ships. I recall beating the Vaudwaar Artillery ship in a Risan Corvette, but I had to get very creative with tactics, and it took something like 2 hours for that single episode.
If Cryptic's goal is to pump up their "login time" metrics, this is one way: just make the player kill 4 or more waves of hitpoint sponges on 4-5 patrols per episode. Even in a well-equipped T6 ship and the benefit of previous experience, it's still taking more than 1 hour to play each DR episode...
Savik - Vulcan Fed Temporal Sci
Dahar Masters Fleet: Alphal'Fa - Alien KDF Engineer Qun'pau - Rom/KDF Engineer D'nesh - Orion KDF Scientist Ghen'khan - Liberated KDF Tac
Welcome to StarBug Online - to boldly Bug where no bug has been before!
STO player since November 2013
But really... crits are the key. An assignment that gives 250xp non-crit might give 500 or more on a crit. Of course the higher the base, the better, but also using purple doffs increases the xp gain you get from crits.
My character Tsin'xing